2 Leva Foreign Exchange Certificate

Bulgaria's Foreign Exchange Certificates — known locally as "certifikati" — were instruments of the Korekom hard-currency retail system, introduced to capture foreign exchange from tourists and Bulgarians with access to Western money. Holders could spend them at Korekom shops stocking imported goods unavailable through normal socialist retail channels. The scheme effectively ran a two-tier economy, quietly acknowledging that the lev was not convertible and that the state needed dollars, marks, and pounds more than its own currency.

By 1986 the system was well into its second decade and winding toward abolition, which came in 1989.